


tongued with fire

by congratsyouvegrownasoul



Series: the only hope; or else despair [5]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Fire Nation Royal Family, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kid Fic, Ozai is a jerk, Speech Disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 19:29:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10770921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/congratsyouvegrownasoul/pseuds/congratsyouvegrownasoul
Summary: Azula wants to play a new game; Zuko has a lisp; their parents react





	tongued with fire

**Author's Note:**

> I noticed again while re-watching ATLA that Zuko has a slight lisp at some points. Apparently Dante Basco chose to voice this to show that he's grown up with some social anxiety about it. Anyway, this fic was born from that. Have another angsty kidfic!

“Let’s play pretend we’re at a ball, like grown-ups. Like Mommy and Daddy,” Azula announces one afternoon. They’re in the palace gardens, and Zuko is lying on his stomach watching a worm inch its way alongside of a tree root, when his little sister comes stomping up to him, her eyes bright with her new idea.

 “I can’t dance,” Zuko mutters, still focused on the worm. Azula reaches down, plucks it up, and tosses it away. Zuko jumps up and starts to head after it, but Azula ducks in front of him and heads him off.

“You don’t have to dance, silly. We can sneak into the ballroom and just pretend.”

Azula pouts at him, with all of her round-faced five-year-old cuteness.

“Come on, Zuzu, please? Don’t be boring. ”

Zuko shrugs, smiling slightly at the use of her baby-nickname for him. “Okay, I guess.”

Their mother had attended a ball just that weekend, so that must be where Azula has picked up this fancy.  She had let them watch her prepare, transforming into a tall, glittering figure in elaborate dress robes and painstakingly applied makeup.

The morning afterwards, she’d regaled them with tales—all the lords and ladies spinning through the ballroom in clouds of bright color, the music and the pageantry, the funny little quirks of mistaken etiquette. The way she told it, it sounded almost like a play. Zuko’s mom loves plays.

As they race through the palace halls, Azula grabs Zuko’s hand and drags him along, laughing giddily as they dash past the occasional courtier or servant.

The grand ballroom is completely empty, a cavernous expanse with mirrored walls and mosaic floors, red and gold tiles woven together like the heart of a bonfire.

Zuko waves at his reflection in the mirrors, watching the movement bounce around into every corner of the room.

Azula sprints into the very center of the dance floor, spinning around and around. Once she finally stops, she takes a moment to catch her breath and then bows formally to Zuko.

“It’s nice to meet you here tonight, Prince Zuko,” Azula says, copying the voice their mother uses at court functions.

Zuko stares at her.

“Um…”

“Say something back!” Azula hisses. “You’re supposed to say, ‘it’s nice to meet you too, Princess Azula.’”

“This is stupid,” Zuko grumbles. “We already know each other.”

“Oh, I know!” Azula exclaims, ignoring him. “If it was a really formal occasion and I was a grownup, people would call me ‘Your Highness’.”

Right now, no one calls Azula or Zuko that. They’re just kids, after all. Even to the servants, they’re Prince Zuko and Princess Azula. But Azula is just figuring out what it means to be a princess, and right now what it means to her is that bad things happen to other people if she doesn’t get her way. Even to Zuko.

So her brother bows back to her, a bit awkwardly, and tells her that it’s very nice to meet her, your highness.

Azula laughs happily, and teases him about the way he lisps at the end of “Your Highness”, and Zuko takes off his shoe and chucks it at her. Eventually they end up chasing each other around the ballroom, and then they’re shouting and giggling and sticking their tongues out at their reflections in the mirrors. They might have run around in there until they fell down from exhaustion, except a court official gets roused by their noise and comes sweeping in to escort them out.

* * *

 

 

The next day, they have their firebending lessons together in the training yard, and their father comes to watch. Usually, they train separately, since they have different teachers and since Zuko is so far behind Azula, but for their father they train together.

It isn’t fair, Zuko thinks, disgruntled. Training with Azula just makes her look better and him look worse.

Today, Azula runs through a series of near-perfect basic forms, and finishes off with a well-formed jet of fire. Their father smiles at her, and she beams with pride. Zuko, on the other hand, struggles to maintain his balance and barely produces a puff of smoke. It’s still hard for him to call up fire at will—it seems to only come out when he’s angry.

He’s angry now, but it doesn’t even seem to help. It’s not as if he doesn’t work just as hard as she does—he’s damp with sweat and breathing raggedly, his hair coming loose from its little tail.

Still, it stings when their father strides over and goes directly to Azula, completely ignoring Zuko. His father’s praise for Azula and his sister’s happy chattering go right over his head, the sound falling on his ears like fuzzy waves. Zuko bites his lip, trying not to cry. His father hates it when he cries.

He starts suddenly when he hears his name.

“—and me and Zuko went exploring yesterday!”

“Yes, I heard some complaints about you two having to be tossed out of the ballroom.” Their father raises an eyebrow.

 Zuko cringes, worried they’re going to get into trouble, but Azula continues on, undaunted.

“We were pretending that we were at a ball, just like you and Mommy last weekend.”

Their father laughs. “Oh, were you? Who were you pretending to be?”

“Just myself, but all grown up, so Zuko had to call me ‘Your Highness’. Only he says ‘Your Highne _th_ ’.”

She giggles.

“Yes, I’ve noticed he does that,” their father says drily, turning to Zuko and really looking at him for the first time.

He examines his son up and down, and Zuko tries his best to stay still and look put-together. He’s very conscious of the loose strands of sweaty hair blowing across his forehead. He doesn’t want to reach up and brush them away, though, so he just fidgets with his fingers behind his back, hoping his father won’t notice.

“Say ‘Your Highness’ for me, please, Zuko.”

His father’s voice is dangerously quiet.

Zuko complies, hoping desperately that the word will come out right. It doesn’t.

“No, High _ness_.”

“Highneth,” Zuko says, stubbornly trying to do better.

Prince Ozai takes his son by the arm.

“Honestly, Zuko, it isn’t that difficult. Try harder. ”

Zuko tries, and fails, and then yelps as his father’s grip becomes painfully tight.

“Dad, stop it, please, you’re hurting me.”

“Can you say ‘stop it’ properly?”

“ _No!_ I can’t, I’m sorry!”

He lisps again on ‘sorry’, and his father rolls his eyes angrily, and twists Zuko’s arm before finally releasing him.

“Pathetic,” Prince Ozai says quietly as Zuko starts to cry.

* * *

 

“Mom, what does ‘pathetic’ mean?”

They’re working on a painting together in his mother’s room, with the window open and birdsong gently flowing in from outside.

Zuko’s mom makes the thick dark outlines of trees, her brushstrokes as precise as calligraphy, and Zuko follows behind with brightly colored inks, red and orange like leaves in the autumn.

Zuko’s mom pauses, lifting her brush from the paper. She can sense some of the discord in his voice, apparently, because she frowns.

“It’s _not_ a nice thing to say to someone at all. It means someone who isn’t very good at things.”

“Well, I’m not, I guess,” Zuko mumbles.

“Sweetheart, did someone say that to you? It wasn’t Azula, was it? I wouldn’t think she’d know that word.”

“No. It was Dad.”

He looks up at his mother, seeing her pretty face clouded, anger sparking in her eyes.

“Mom, are you mad at me?”

“No, darling, I’m mad at your father. He shouldn’t have said that to you.”

 “It’s ‘cause I can’t talk right. ‘Cause of my lisp. He tried to get me to say things properly but I couldn’t.”

He rubs at his bruised arm, half-unconsciously.

His mom purses her lips.

“Oh, Zuko, you speak wonderfully. You know, just a few years ago you couldn’t speak at all, and you’ve learned so much. Your father should see how far you’ve come, not the little bits you’re still working on.”

“I can’t firebend properly either. Maybe that’s really why he was mad at me.”

“I come and watch your training sometimes too, you know. Just you, and then I watch Azula separately. She may be showier, but you’re making great progress. I know you two like to think you’re growing up so fast, but you’re still a kid, Zuko; you’re still learning. And I have to say, you work much better when Azula’s not around.”

“Do I?”

“Yes, sweetheart, you do. It isn’t that you’re not talented—you just get nervous more easily, and it’s harder for you to find the right moves.”

She leans in and kisses Zuko gently on the cheek.

“How about I talk to your father about coming and watching you and Azula separately? Do you think that would help things?”

Zuko nods fervently. “Thanks, mom. But what about my lisp? How do we fix that?”

“We’re just going to have to be patient. Wait and see—I’m sure you can work around it. You’re stubborn, Zuko. I like that about you—it means you never give up. And lisp or no lisp, you can do lots of things well.”

She gestures down at the parchment they’ve been painting on.

“Just look at this! It looks just like the leaves on the trees outside. You’ve colored it perfectly.”

Zuko smiles. “It does look pretty good, doesn’t it?”

“For the next part of the painting, since you’re so good at this, I’ll let you paint the outlines. Here, let me guide your hand. I’ll show you how, and next time you can do it on your own.”

She wraps her hand over Zuko’s smaller one, her grip firm but her hands soft.

“Alright?”

Zuko nods, and, together, they start to paint.


End file.
